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“I loved this newsletter. It's great how you break down us readers' resistances to taking care of ourselves, and do it with such a sweet and gentle voice with that touch of humor. Questions like those are excellent tools for re-focusing; getting back on track with what's important and letting go of what's not.”

- Ella Jolly, Social Worker
New York City

Human vs. Machine: Do you ever feel this way too?

“Why doesn’t it just WORK?!”

These are words I’ve exclaimed about everything from my phone to my computer to WiFi. If I had a car, I’m sure I’d say it about that, too. Machines and electronics — they’re just supposed to…do what they’re designed to do, right? They’re not supposed to ever break or malfunction because they’re just NOT!

When it comes to the body, however, my perspective shifts drastically. I understand on a very visceral level that the body is designed to be in flux. That the very reason it can do so many amazing things — pump blood, problem solve, imagine, heal from a cut, do a double back-flip — is the very same reason why is sometimes breaks and aches, literally or metaphorically.

It is a highly responsive, intelligent, miraculous mechanism that requires regular care and attention to function properly. Optimally.

It seems I may be in the minority in my view of things, as many people tend to be more comfortable with the fact that computers will malfunction and cars need to be taken in for regular tune-ups than they do with the notion that their bodies will also run into problems and will also need regular maintenance and attention.

It seems (in my very observational survey on humanity) that there is an expectation that the body should really, if it is a good body, operate in some kind of suspended state of timeless perfection. (Or that if we try hard enough or want it enough, we can achieve that eventually). That no matter what life hands us or how we treat it, it should just run smoothly, almost like a robotic, metallic shell which serves to get us from one place to the next and house our big brain (sort of like a computer. Or a car).

I came across this thought-provoking quote from Rob Brezny, one of my fav astrology and positive thinking peeps who you might already know:

“Try out this hypothesis: If you’re involved with any person or situation that never decays, or if there is some part of you that never decays, that’s highly suspicious and may be a problem. Like growth, rot is a natural phenomenon. Indeed, every advancement requires or brings the disintegration of whatever it replaces. You can’t grow if you don’t rot. The “perfection” of stasis can be hazardous to your health. What’s ripe to rot in your world?“

I see bodywork as a time to (among other important things) lie down and experience my physical humanness. All of it. The comfort and the discomfort which makes up the whole miraculous thing. It’s the only way it can be. It is rot and growth, pleasure and pain, movement and change, ups and downs. Just like life. One and the same; there is no separation.

I see bodywork, particularly regularly received bodywork, as a practice to honor this ongoing process of change and growth and the innate human need for care and restoration.

That, and it just feels really, really good : )

I hope to hold space for your practice soon.

Love + all of it,
Helena

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